


The (Player's Hand)Book of Love

by jackclaw



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: M/M, Magic!Stiles, Mama Stilinski Feels, Steter Secret Santa, out the wazoo, pop culture references, the canon timeline has been taken out back and shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-21
Updated: 2019-12-21
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:13:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21885769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jackclaw/pseuds/jackclaw
Summary: It's not that Stiles forgets the whole magically appearing mountain ash thing. Really. He just... gets a little preoccupied until Peter reminds him that he is, in fact, a little magic.
Relationships: Peter Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Comments: 13
Kudos: 396
Collections: Steter Secret Santa 2019





	The (Player's Hand)Book of Love

**Author's Note:**

  * For [covarla](https://archiveofourown.org/users/covarla/gifts).



> coupla notes!
> 
> 1\. the title is a play on the title of [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkjXr9SrzQE) magnetic fields song 
> 
> 2\. this... kind of ended up being a character study with a smattering of ship alskjfd sorry??
> 
> 3\. i tweaked the canon timeline. and by tweaked i mean i completely reworked it but this is really only relevant in the beginning so... /shrug
> 
> 4\. this has been proofread but i was super tired when that happened so apologies for any typos or what have you!! i will probably do the thing where i reread it in a few days, cringe, and then quietly fix all of them and hope no one notices

It’s not that Stiles forgets the whole magically appearing mountain ash thing. That’s a little difficult to forget. He just... gets preoccupied with the kanima. Then Boyd and Erica go missing and next thing he knows, Stiles is spending most of his time at Derek’s loft or out with him, Peter, or Isaac trying to track them down. And then there’s the whole thing with the Alpha Pack at the end of summer, and senior year starting, and AP classes, and the pack starting to act like a real pack, and Stiles keeping an eye on Peter which turns into hanging out with Peter a surprising amount because he’s less a psycho murderer these days and more a stupidly attractive, arrogant asshole that can snark with the best of them.

He doesn’t _forget_. He just gets preoccupied.

And it’s not like he’s doing nothing with the knowledge. Stiles spends a lot of his free time figuring out what he can do with mountain ash. What its limits are, how he can use it, et cetera, et cetera, ad nauseum. He gets _really good_ with it. To the point where Peter comments, at the beginning of winter break, that he’s probably mastered the use of it and he might think about looking into other forms of magic.

That throws him for a loop. 

Sure, he knew intellectually that using mountain ash was a form of magic. How else would he get it in such neat little circles just by tossing it in the air? With anything else, Stiles would just be giving himself a sneeze attack. But it’s become an almost mundane part of his life, and if he’s being completely honest with himself? The idea of being able to do _more_ magic is... Unsettling. 

Of course, he’s never let that stop him before, so the day after that conversation with Peter, he goes to Deaton. He really should’ve known better. The guy is only helpful when the wind is right. 

Stiles asks if he can learn more magic, and Deaton sighs, putting down the pen he was using to make notes in a chart. “You have the potential, yes.” 

Stiles squints at him, waiting a good moment for him to go on. That’s all he says. “... _And_? Come on, that’s not all you’ve got for me.”

“Actually,” Deaton says, “it is. Even if I could teach you, I wouldn’t. You have the potential but not the temperament.”

And isn’t that the most infuriating thing he’s heard in a while?

***

“He’s not wrong, you know.”

Stiles stops his pacing in front of the giant bay window Peter has in his living room and whirls around to glare at the man himself. “ _What_.”

Peter sighs, marking his place in whatever crusty old book he’s reading this week and places it on the coffee table. “When you first heard about mountain ash and what it can do, what was your reaction, Stiles? Did you believe Deaton?”

He’d thought it was bullshit, honestly. But he’s not going to _say that_. “What’s your point?”

Draping his arms over the back of the couch, Peter gives Stiles a look. It’s the kind of look that sends heat and ice both zipping down Stiles’ spine. Makes him feel like he’s pinned to a table and being thoroughly studied. Like he’s known. He kinda loathes those looks and kinda loves them at the same time.

“Magic,” Peter explains, “Is all about belief. Oh, there are certain materials that are inherently magical and rituals involving them, but it’s more like an innate superpower than it is potions and spell-casting. If you believe something can happen and have the power within you to make it happen, it does.”

Stiles can’t help the scoff that escapes him. 

“And that right there is why Deaton’s right about your ‘temperament’.” Peter smirks. “It’s easy for you to believe things when you have proof and you want to believe them, but you’re skeptical enough that learning to use magic would have you fighting yourself every step of the way.”

He hates it, but Stiles knows Peter is right. When it’s happening to someone else, it’s easy to believe in the supernatural. The jump from a bite that healed overnight to “werewolf” was… okay, the subject of a huge research binge. But still acceptable, given the facts. Stiles himself having magic? Not so much.

“Fine,” he grits out. “How do I get past it?”

Like hell is he going to let Deaton’s opinion of his ‘temperament’ dictate whether or not he can do something that can maybe one day save the people he cares about in a pinch. Spite is a hell of a motivator. 

Peter smiles, somehow smug and proud at once. “When you were a kid, what was the first thing you thought of when you thought of magic? Not—” He holds up a hand before Stiles can respond. “Harry Potter or anything like that.”

“Penn and Teller.”

And isn’t that telling in and of itself? 

“Before that, then.” Peter leans forward, elbows resting on his knees. “When you were really young, before the world stomped all the wonder out of you, what made you believe in the impossible?”

One image comes to mind immediately. One of Stiles’ earliest memories. He takes a moment to think about it, rolling it over in his mind and making sure he’s remembering as accurately as he can. He doesn’t realize that his gaze has drifted and his jaw has clenched until Peter brings his mind back to the present with a soft, “Work off of that feeling.”

It makes sense, starting there. He really, _really_ doesn’t want to, but… it makes sense.

And so, that Wednesday when Stiles heads to the comic shop to pick up the books on his pull list, he also picks up a hardcover book. It’s not exactly like what his mom would’ve had. The slight bit of research he did into this tells him that. It’s close enough, though. Enough so that, when Stiles gets home and sits cross-legged on his bed with the book in his lap, it takes him longer than he’d ever admit to open it.

His heart hurts. The memory is bittersweet, like all memories of his mother are. This even more so because it was just for him. It’s not something his dad would have really known about.

She called them her girls’ nights. Stiles, being a cute and precocious little boy, wasn’t allowed in the kitchen when they happened except when he was sick or upset. The few times that did happen, though, his mother would scoop him up and sit him in her lap. He would watch as his mother and her friends would roll dice and tell fantastic stories together. He didn’t understand how things worked, but he had enough imagination to go along with what he listened to. 

And when his mother would tuck him back into bed after a little while, she would promise to tell him what else her druid character got up to. She would smile at him, kiss his forehead, and twist her hand just _so_ until a small sprig of flowers appeared. A little bit of magic to guard his dreams.

It wasn’t real magic. He knew that. Once Stiles was older and discovered sleight of hand his mom was the one who helped him learn his first few tricks. How to make coins dance across his knuckles. How to make a card disappear. How to shuffle but keep things where he wanted them. But he never learned the specifics of how she pulled out the flowers. That was kept secret, almost sacred, a little bit of pretend for the two of them. 

The Player’s Handbook he has isn’t the same edition his mother would have had. But looking at it still makes him yearn in a way he hasn’t in a long time. 

He doesn’t want to open it. Doesn’t really want to accept that, yeah, he’s magic. Because if it’s true, if he really does have power fueled by his belief, where was it when all this supernatural shit started? Where was it when Stiles would stare at his dad and wish with everything in his body that they could understand each other a little easier? When he wanted to talk about his mom and wanted so badly to make his dad start the conversation because Stiles couldn't bring himself to reopen that wound himself? 

Where was it when his mom was dying and didn’t recognize him anymore?

Yeah, Deaton and Peter both explained that magic can only do so much, and kids only have so much power. Even if he’d been fucking Merlin or something, at that age he wouldn’t have been able to do jack for his mom. But it’s still a bitter pill to swallow.

With a slightly trembling hand, Stiles finally opens the book. Skims through the table of contents and skips right to Chapter 11: Spells.

The list of spells by class makes next to no sense to him since he doesn’t know what some of them do based on name alone, though some of them are obvious. He flips ahead a few pages to spell descriptions and skims through the names until he finds vaguely nature-themed or druid-y spells. Barkskin, Commune With Nature, a whole slew of conjuring spells though none of them are Conjure Plants… _Druidcraft_. He skims the description and reads “ _You instantly make a flower blossom_ ” and figures that’s probably equivalent to whatever his mom was mimicking. 

Outside of that, the actual description is—not really helpful. He didn’t expect Dungeons and Dragons to be a magic how-to guide, but he was kind of hoping there’d be more to it than whispering to nature spirits (which probably aren’t a real thing… probably) and then something happens. 

“Great,” Stiles mutters to himself, flopping backwards onto his bed. “Now what?”

He should just—do it, right? That’s how this is supposed to work. He believes real hard—uses faith and trust and all that except for the pixie dust—and it’ll happen. God, it sounds so stupid. 

Stiles looks at his left hand. The long fingers, the bony knuckles, the dusting of hair at his wrist. They’re nothing like his mother’s hands. Hers were smaller, obviously, and more elegant. She liked to wear bright nail polish. When she did magic tricks, her fingers looked like they were dancing. Stiles’ hands won’t look like hers when he mimics her movements. Even so, there’s a bone-deep _knowing_ in him, a surety more than a gut feeling that tells him it’ll still work. 

With a shaky inhale, Stiles closes his eyes. He remembers being five and as wide-eyed as he could get when he was so tired. It’s been long enough since his mom died that he can’t quite remember the way her voice sounded, but he knows how it made him feel. That’s what he holds onto as he twists his hand through the air.

His breath catches in his throat. There, between his fingers, is something small and soft. He almost doesn’t want to open his eyes in case he’s just imagining it. The rest of him is clamoring to see what he did.

He opens one eye just a slit. Just enough to see his hand. Surprise makes him open his eyes all the way. Stare for a good minute at the stem clutched between two fingers and the five little light blue flowers coming off it. They look familiar but Stiles knows absolutely nothing about flowers so he has no idea what kind they are. He moves the stem between his thumb and forefinger, watching as the plant spins slowly. 

It worked. 

Holy shit.

The knowledge that he just conjured flowers out of fucking _nowhere_ actually settles in and he laughs a little breathlessly. He’s magic. 

Carefully, very gently, he rests the flowers on his bedside table and reaches for his phone. Time to brag to the only person who knows he was gonna try this.

  
pumpkin eater

**Stiles:** i did it suck on that deaton  
  
**Peter:** Oh? What did you do?  
  
**Stiles:** pulled these out of thin air  
  
[](https://i.imgur.com/EFMWGmN.png)  
  
**Peter:** Well done. Next step: try for something a little more romantic than forget-me-nots.  
  


***

The first success breaks the dam. From there on out, Stiles is deep in experimenting- and research-mode. He picks up a notebook from the drugstore and writes “YER A WIZARD HARRY” in Sharpie on the cover. Each page is filled with scribbles, highlighted lines, and sticky notes talking about everything from what kinds of flowers he can conjure, to how many tries it takes him to do something new, to how many castings he can do before he gets tired. (The last one is a sad amount, but he’s hoping it’s like a muscle that’ll get built up with use. This may be the only work-out he’ll ever _really_ enjoy.)

He tries all kinds of things, taking his cues from the cantrips in the Player’s Handbook. Dancing Lights make his heart ache in that bittersweet way thinking of how much he wishes his mom could see him now always does. He gets a little pissed at Isaac one day and can’t help but think of the Vicious Mockery spell as he snarks. The bewildered little wince and complaints of a headache until last period are like music to Stiles’ ears. He’s going to have fun with that one. 

On the other side of things, the first time he tries to clean using Prestidigitation he… kind of goes overboard. Just a little.

Look, he’s never dusted anything so well or so fast, and while they keep the house pretty clean, neither he nor his dad are really huge on housework. So Stiles may or may not grab a broom and pretend to Fantasia it up one night only to basically pass out on the couch after a couple castings. Whatever. It’s not a huge deal even if he does eat like twice as much as he normally does the next day. He got some good data out of it. 

It takes him a couple weeks to feel out his limits and get to the point where he wants to take another baby step. He even knows the spell he wants to mimic. It’s going to have to involve someone in the know about his experimentation. Which, at this point, is Stiles himself and Peter. He’s pretty sure his dad suspects that he’s up to something, but there’s no way he knows specifics. Plus, the spell Stiles wants to try and emulate is… not something he’s keen on using on his dad. So Peter it is.

  
pumpkin eater

**Stiles:** hey you free this evening  
  
**Peter:** Yes. Why?  
  
**Stiles:** want to try something and need help  
  
**Stiles:** i'll bring you dinner for payment  
  
**Peter:** Deal. Be here at 6.  
  
**Stiles:** it's a date  
  
**Stiles:** wait no  
  
**Stiles:** not a date date  
  
**Stiles:** it's just a phrase  
  
**Peter:** That's a pity.  
  


… What. 

Stiles stares at his phone blankly for a long moment and decides, nope. He doesn’t have the brain power to deal with the idea of Peter flirting with him right now. That can get shelved for later. He’s got food to pick up and magic to do. 

And, okay, maybe he gets a little excited and a little too eager to not think about the whole Peter thing and ends up awkwardly standing in front of Peter’s apartment door almost twenty minutes early. It’s cool. He can deal with that. Even when Peter opens said door with an expression on his face that somehow manages to be both exasperated and fond.

“You’re lucky I don’t work,” Peter says, gesturing Stiles in. “What are we doing tonight?”

Stiles blames the nerves for his automatic response of, “The same thing we do every night, Pinky.”

Luckily, it gets a snort of laughter. 

“Clever as you are, you are _not_ the Brain in this situation.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Stiles holds out the bag of take-out. “Might want to put this in the fridge for now. I’d rather eat after in case this goes wrong.”

Peter tilts his head in a gesture of something like agreement and does as suggested. He pads back into the living room on bare feet which is. Kind of weird and kind of endearing to Stiles. Just seeing the guy comfortable in his own home. Usually he wears obnoxious leather slippers that look like they're lined with wool from baby sheep or something. 

“What, exactly, are you trying tonight?”

Stiles takes in a fortifying breath, bracing himself for a bad reaction. This could all go belly-up so easily, given Peter's, well, everything. “A truth spell. One that’ll affect both of us and that can be resisted if you want to badly enough.”

“ _Well_.” Peter sits down on the couch. Or rather, throws himself down onto the couch in a manner that is so dramatic and easy it has to be practiced. “I’m intrigued. Just enough to agree to this.”

_Whew_.

With a lopsided smile, Stiles parks his butt on the other end of the couch and just... breathes. Closes his eyes and centers himself, imagining what he wants. A circular area around them becoming a zone of truth for no more than half an hour. Little glowing lights on the perimeter to denote what all is in it. The last bit is probably pushing his limits, but. It looks awesome when he opens his eyes. At least once he shakes his head to clear the bit of double vision and sudden dizziness.

“Alright?” Peter asks.

“Yeah. ‘M fine. Just feels a little like a head rush. This is all I’m good for tonight," Stiles says. It's more truthful that he initially was planning to be, but that means the spell is working.

Peter studies him for a moment, serious and almost frowning, before nodding and relaxing back into the stupidly plush couch. “Alright. Let’s test this out, shall we?”

Stiles grins. “I figure it’s a good idea to start with establishing a baseline like they do with polygraphs. What’s your full name?”

“Peter Edmund Hale.”

Stiles blinks. Digests that and blinks again. “Seriously?”

“Seriously.” Peter smiles, small and fond and wistful. “My mother was a fan of the Narnia books and, since I was the surprise baby and born when my father was out of the country, she named me without any input from him.”

“Huh.” He tucks that little tidbit of information away for later. “How old are you?”

“Thirty-three.”

“Are you a werewolf?”

“Yes.”

“Do you seek the Holy Grail?”

Peter snorts. “No. How many of these are pop culture references?”

“Just the one.” Stiles shifts, bringing his feet up onto the couch and resting an arm against the back of it. What to ask, what to ask... “Are you aware that the dumb mustache you break out every once in a while makes you look like a Disney villain?”

“Since you’ve mentioned that before, yes.” A mischievous light flares in Peter’s eyes. “How long are you planning on stalling before you get to the questions you really want the answers to?”

“Uh...” Stiles swallows hard enough that he hears his throat click. He wants to lie. But there's a pressure in his chest and on the back of his tongue that tells him he either has to tell the truth or not answer at all. “As long as possible?”

“This is only going to last so long, Stiles.” Peter rests his head against one hand and gestures with the other. “You might as well get on with it.”

With an invitation like that, how can he refuse? He can't, that's how. Dammit.

“Why did you agree to do this?”

Peter smiles. “I wanted to see what you'd come up with.”

Not the answer Stiles was expecting, but given the spell it’s not something he can really refute. It’s also totally not what Stiles actually wants to ask. He gnaws at his lower lip for a moment. “Why did you offer me the bite?”

“Because you intrigued me,” Peter says. “You’re smarter than most people, occasionally brave to the point of stupidity, more loyal than man’s best friend, and surprisingly vicious when need be. You’re more wolf as a human than some other bitten wolves I could name.”

“Scott.” Stiles rolls his eyes. “You mean Scott.”

“Of course I mean Scott. And that’s still not what you’re really curious about.”

“It kinda--” Stiles cuts himself off with a yawn, the expenditure of energy starting to catch up to him. “Kinda is, yeah. That’s what I was thinking of when I first saw the--I mean. Got the idea for the spell.”

The little motes of light around them flicker for a moment and come back dimmer than a second ago.

“Looks like time is almost up,” Peter says. “Any other burning questions?”

There’s a million different things he could ask. Why Peter killed Laura. Why he bit Scott. What he’s planning in the long-term. Just what he wants with Stiles and his magic. Instead what comes out is, “Were you flirting with me earlier?”

Peter grins. Not a smirk, not a hint of a smile, a genuine grin with his pearly whites showing in a non-threatening way. ... Mostly non-threatening way. “It’s about time you caught on.”

Oh.

“... Oh.” Stiles blinks. Lets that sink in. And promptly feels himself turn pink. “Really?”

“Really.” Peter reaches out and catches Stiles’ chin between his forefinger and thumb, a surprisingly gentle grasp. “Would you like me to kiss you?”

The answer comes before Stiles can really think about it, like the magic has plucked it from his thoughts and writ it in the air. “Oh, god, yes.”

With a low, rough sound of amusement, Peter leans in and does just that.

Which, of course, is when Stiles passes out.

***

“I think you’ve got the whole magical fairy tale kiss moment backwards.”

Stiles groans and buries his face in his pillow. Which is somewhat hard for a pillow and weirdly shaped. “What...?” He opens his eyes and looks around. He’s laying on the couch, head resting on Peter’s thigh. Hovering in the air right above him is a container of Chinese take-out that Peter is eating out of. With chopsticks because of course the asshole knows how to use chopsticks and make it look easy.

“How long’ve I been out?” Stiles asks.

“Not long. Maybe forty minutes.” Peter puts the food aside and runs a gentle hand through Stiles’ hair. “Feeling better?”

Stiles hums and leans into the touch. “Yeah. Really hungry though.”

“Good think you brought an inordinate amount of food with you. How about I get you some and then we can talk about trying that kiss again?”

“That’s the best idea I’ve heard all week.”

It's much better the second time around. And the third. And the fourth, fifth, sixth, and every time after that.

**Author's Note:**

> come scream about these two with me on [tumblr](http://jackclaw.tumblr.com/)


End file.
